Sarah Palin's latest, desperate dive into what she perceives to be the national spotlight involves fronting for a meretricious bit of cinema financed and promoted by the various industries that fund and promote climate denialism.

Variety has learned exclusively that former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is participating in the event. The screening of the documentary, produced by Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and Marc Morano's ClimateDepot.com, will be followed by a panel discussion featuring Palin, with opening remarks by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. The discussion will be moderated by Brent Bozell, founder and president of the Media Research Center. Morano is planning to show clips of Bill Nye, best known as "the science guy," from an interview. Variety reported earlier that Nye was scheduled to appear but his rep for said he was not invited to participate.

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(Alas for us all, and contrary to earlier reports, Palin and Nye will not be appearing on the panel together.)

But, as it turns out, back in the days when she was just the obscure governor of Alaska, Princess Dumbass of the Northwoods was extraordinarily concerned about the effect the climate crisis was having on her state, not an easy position for an Alaskan politician to take given the state's dependence on an oil economy.

Her current position appears to be at odds with the stance she took in her first year as governor. In 2007, she used an administrative order to create an Alaska Climate Change Sub-Cabinet. Her administrative order cites the rapid warming of Alaska and other northern latitude areas and identifies it as a wide-ranging problem for the state. "Climate change is not just an environmental issue," the order reads. "It is also a social, cultural, and economic issue important to all Alaskans. As a result of this warming, coastal erosion, thawing permafrost, retreating sea ice, record forest fires, and other changes are affecting, and will continue to affect, the lifestyles and livelihoods of Alaskans," the executive order says. The executive order specifically identifies greenhouse gas emissions as the cause of climate change; it touts Alaska natural gas as a "low carbon fuel to help the nation reduce its overall greenhouse gas emissions," and it directs the group to investigate carbon-trading opportunities for Alaska.

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I can testify first-hand to the truth of this. In the course of researching my last book, I spent a week in Shishmaref, the community on an Arctic barrier island that, due to the climate crisis, is slowly being devoured by the Chukchi Sea. While I was there, the people of the village spoke very highly of Governor Palin, and of her attempts to help them face the consequences of what was happening to their homes. Fame is a nasty-ass drug, sure enough.